critique my small grow (pics)

the other day me and a friend put this together. the wood is small than 2x4"s but it seems to be enough for a box this size (4x4x2') and has turned out pretty solid with as many brackets as it has.


building the frame

we couldn't find mylar or panda plastic so we found an all white thicker-than-posterboard type material which we nailed on the inside of the wooden frame. there's an intake with a screen (pic below) and an exhaust with a 320m2/hour fan (25watt). on the inside of the box there are hooks on the top and we used caulk to seal the joints.





the only major thing that has to be done is to add a door. we couldn't decide on the best design for the door so we decided to let the caulk dry and add the door a day or two later. we got some hinges so we were thinking of building a wooden frame with the same white material on the inside, but we're not sure if it would be airtight. any tips on making a door for this?

eventually a 400w hps will end up in here. I think this should be close to ideal size for a 400w lamp, please correct me if I'm wrong. one other thing I was planning on adding was a small oscillating fan to the inside-

any tips or guidance appreciated-

if i may sudgest an idea for the door it would be that you use a 4 hinge system have half the door open one way then the other the other way

l l<say this is your full door
l l l <split it down the middle
<l l l> <and make it so that both parts open the opposite way

(use a peice of strapping that's painted black on one side to seal off the center join to the two to prevent light leaks)
i used this design in my box after already having to clear 1/4 of the room to open the door. when i installed this design for the door tho it was alot easier to get open and shut without having to haul a full sheet of plywood around everytime i went to check on my girls

It looks great to me!

I would suggest, as the guy above me did, to add a cabinet-style door. Is being air-tight something you're really aiming for? As long as it's light-tight it should be great! Get that oscillating fan in there, it's gonna get hot with a 400w hps.

its going to get hot

Burnitdown said:

its going to get hot

Click to expand...

any advice?

i added 1 cpu fan in each side of the cabinet door both blowing air in.. i also added a 6" fan in the top corner of the box to blow air around the room. for an exhaust fan i added 3 cpu fans together (side by side) and then made a homemade air freshener system to kill all the smells that come out of the box. with this i covered the 3 exhaust fans and made small holes in the other end in order for the freshened air to escape i am not running a hid but alot of floros and cfl's create alot of heat when there is so many of them in the one small area... this fan setup man be good for you because i always turn off 2 of the exhaust fans and one of the door fans for when the lights go off because if i didn't it would become too cold for the plants

Box looks good man, I recently finished one with a similiar design (yours looks nicer but my seems to function just fine). I have never used CPU fans for growing and I was a bit shocked so many people here do. I am IT, have you ever been in a datacenter or server room? Those fans are loud and they have one of the higher mortality rates of any server component. For my box I have a wire shelf mounted about 2.5 feet over the box. I have two chambers, veg and flower. Each chamber has two 4" ducts coming out the top. The ducts mount to the underside of the wire shelf. I have two box fans laying flat on top of shelf directly above the vents. Time will tell if it can maintain the temp but so far so good (I use cfl lights so you can also adjust quantities and watts if it gets hot). I also made the two ends of my box out of peg board for ventilation out. I plan to mount a residential air filter (with pine tree scent freshner add) on the outside so the exhaust flows through that. I guess I am in a weird situation as my box does not require a great level stealth.

read this post for ideas.

If you use stanley blower fan it can handle both heat & odor exhaust and relatively inexpensive.


-potlike

anyone have a good design for a DIY reflector? I cut some aluminum cans and made a ghetto frame out of wood which attaches to the light bracket with zip ties but I'm not certain of where to go from here. thinking these cans might not be big enough for this light, but they'd be easy to bend and screw straight into the wood.

potlike said:

read this post for ideas.

If you use stanley blower fan it can handle both heat & odor exhaust and relatively inexpensive.

Click to expand...

that looks great. although it wouldn't match up to that stanley blower fan, the exhaust fan I'm using now is surprisingly capable. if it goes too hot I can always add an intake fan also.

Thanks for sharing that potlike. Heat and venting can be a pain, I am considering tapping into my ac ducting in the attic or ceiling vent and just run a direct vent into the box (i keep my house about 76 degrees).... the wife would kill me but problem would be solved.

use a cheap silver car windshield reflector as the material for your light reflector, you can pick up a gaint one for like 4 bucks. You can build a frame from anything and line it with the windshield reflector. I used that and flat white paint to line the walls in box. It seems to do ok.

E=MC420 said:

use a cheap silver car windshield reflector as the material for your light reflector, you can pick up a gaint one for like 4 bucks. You can build a frame from anything and line it with the windshield reflector. I used that and flat white paint to line the walls in box. It seems to do ok.

Click to expand...

great idea, thanks

Your box is 4' tall, if you take subtract the height of plant container you are probably left with three feet. Once the plants get about one foot tall you may not even need a reflector if the walls are lined good.

i use reflective insulation for my growbox and it works great. it helps keep the temp steady and it also helps reflect light





As a reflector for my lights i curve a big peice of aluminum sheet metal and fasten my lights to it ( silver side down twords plants)

highwayman said:

As a reflector for my lights i curve a big peice of aluminum sheet metal and fasten my lights to it ( silver side down twords plants)

Click to expand...

do you buy that at a hardware store?

Dry Ice = keeps it cool + additional CO2

you just have to work out the quantity, storage, and sublimation rates and you'll be golden!

good job. keep it up

yeah i buy it at a hardware store. most of them should carry it. and behind the sheet metal i use some 1 inch plywood to make the sheeting sturdy

Nice box...nicer capris in the first pic....

added closet style doors with four hinges, photo:



and then nearly completed version with plants and lights:



closeup of plants & light (accidentally broke one 150w cfl yesterday, but one 150w should be enough for now until they get bigger):



couldn't find the aluminum sheet to make a reflector with, so I found car windshield reflectors which I'll apply to a frame once I build one. three plants are under the lights now, one has just barely broken past the surface, another is about 1cm tall and the third is about 3cm. I mist them a couple times a day and added an oscillating fan today which adds a breeze.

edit: tried to add these pics to the original post, can't edit it